


To-Do List

by Gin_Juice



Series: picture book [11]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Dysfunctional Family, Family Bonding, Family Drama, Five being a dick, No Incest, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Rare Pairs!, except in a platonic way, why is mermaids not a tag?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 01:10:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21467578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gin_Juice/pseuds/Gin_Juice
Summary: “So, I was thinking that we could go out and have a ‘Me and You’ day.”“What inspired that thought?”“We never do anything that’s just the two of us. I thought we could hang out for a bit, that’s all.”Five narrowed his eyes and took a sip of his coffee. Like hell that was all._______________Five finds a new purpose in life. Allison just wants him to stop yelling at her.
Relationships: Number Five | The Boy & Allison Hargreeves
Series: picture book [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1335751
Comments: 40
Kudos: 404





	To-Do List

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a series, but you don't have to read previous installments to follow along- Basically, the Apocalypse has been averted, and the kids are trying to be a real family. The boys plus Dave's ghost are living at the Academy, and Allison visits frequently from L.A. Ben recently acquired a pair of kittens, and there is a Random Old Man Ghost who drops in from time to time and tries to force them all to be real people, with mixed results.

Five studied his own face frowning up at him from the little plastic card he held. He was getting a pimple, he realized.

“Ooh, my favorite little guy is a licensed driver!” Klaus pressed the back of his hand to his forehead and spun in a swooning semi-circle, which was not at all an intelligent thing to be doing in a crowded DMV, but nobody had ever accused Klaus of being intelligent. “They grow up so fast! I should have brought a camera.”

Luther, too, had been staring at the card in quiet amazement, and he looked up at Five with a sheepish smile. “I still can’t believe you did it,” he confessed. “This is… pretty amazing, actually.”

“I could take a picture of you holding up your license, and then take a second picture of you holding up the first picture,” Klaus went on.

“It isn’t that impressive.” Five shot a dirty look at a woman in a fluffy parka who was watching their conversation with open interest. She quickly grabbed a newspaper someone had abandoned in the chair next to her. “It was only a matter of being persistent.”

“—and then I could take a third picture of you holding up the second one—“

“Well. Congratulations anyway.”

A harried-looking man caught Luther with a hard elbow to the kidney as he made a mad dash to a counter that had just called the same number four times in a row. He mumbled an apology without breaking his stride, while Luther flushed and crossed his arms like that would make him smaller.

“Maybe we should, ah…” He bobbed an awkward nod at the exit.

Five followed wordlessly, rubbing his thumb over where their address was printed.

He’d been working towards this for months. All the letters, the hours on the phone, the endless red tape, and now… now he had this flimsy little piece of plastic.

“—and then the last picture can be of Luther holding _you_ up,” Klaus was babbling as they made their way outside. He hopped off the curb and jigged backwards for a few paces. “Family photo shoot when we get home! Who’s in? …Don’t all answer at once, now.”

Luther hesitated outside the van. “Do you want to drive?” he asked, and held out the keys with only a hint of wariness.

Five gave his license one last look before sliding it into the pocket of his coat. “No,” he said. “That’s alright.”

{}{}{}{}{}

As a child, the great goal of Five’s life had been to achieve mastery of his powers. He could remember lying in his bed at night, staring up at the water stain on the ceiling, and thinking to himself, _‘Someday, I’m going to be too strong for Dad to boss me around anymore, and then I’ll leave this horrible place.’_

And that plan had blown up in his face in rather spectacular fashion, but it had also given him a new goal: _‘Someday, I’ll figure out reverse time-travel, and then I’ll leave _this _horrible place.’_

Followed by, _‘Someday, I’ll manage to steal the calibrations to get home right before the Apocalypse, and then I’ll save the world.’_

And then, _‘Someday, I’ll force the State of New York to recognize me as a legal adult, and then I won’t have to bum rides off Luther and Diego.’ _A less ambitious goal, true, but it had felt important at the time.

Now all of those ‘somedays’ had come and gone, and he was back in the horrible place he had started from—though it was far less horrible these days—and the only things left to do were fiddle around with equations, fill out newspaper crosswords, and embrace the inevitability of death.

And day-drink out of sheer boredom, because fuck if he was retiring to Florida.

Five gagged down another sip of his vodka-tonic creation. He’d tried playing around with the recipe for variety’s sake, adding some bitters, a little orange zest, a dash of some coconut liqueur in a fancy bottle whose label was written in a language he couldn’t identify.

It tasted like shit, but he had made it, and by God, he was going to drink it.

The door to the sitting room creaked open, and in his peripheral vision he could make out a vague Allison shape.

“Starting a little early, aren’t you?” she called.

Five rolled his eyes and swiveled in the bar stool to face her. “Did you just come from the airport?” he drawled. “Lovely to see you, as always.”

Allison pursed her lips for just a second as she drew up next to him. “Good to see you, too,” she said, in a tone it sounded like she was forcing to be mild.

Five took another swig of his drink and tried not to openly grimace at the taste.

Now was the part where Allison would ask what he’d been up to since her last visit, and he’d tell her nothing much. He’d ask how her flight was, and she would say it was alright. If there hadn’t been any major upsets in family court recently, she might share some anecdote about Claire, and that would be the end of the only one-on-one conversation they would have for the rest of her stay.

Or, it would have been if Klaus hadn’t come storming into the room behind her.

He paused for a moment in the doorway, clearing his throat to make sure he had their full attention. Five braced himself for one of his trademark stupid announcements.

“DAVE LEFT ME!”

He—what? Dave had waited around for Klaus for more than half a century, and they had been play-wrestling and laughing on the living room floor not two days ago, and—_what?_

Five found himself gripping the edge of his barstool to keep from tipping out of it in boozy surprise, since it felt like the room had just tilted on its axis.

A frowning Ben flickered into existence to Klaus’s left.

“He just found out his great-niece is getting married in Delaware tomorrow,” he informed Five and Allison with clear exasperation. “He’ll be back by Tuesday.”

Klaus flung his hands up into the air. “Who knows when _that_ will be?!” he wailed.

Five exhaled sharply through his nose as Klaus threw himself face-first on the sofa and began caterwauling into the cushions.

Jesus Christ. What day was it now? Thursday? He couldn’t quite recall, but Tuesday needed to hurry the hell up if this was what they had to look forward to.

To add to his displeasure, Allison let out a weary sigh and trudged across the room to perch on the arm of the couch.

“It’s only four days,” she soothed. She reached down and stroked Klaus’s hair. “Why don’t we go do something fun together? I was thinking on the flight out here that my nails are a wreck—how does a trip to the salon sound?”

Five took another sip of his awful drink and watched her through narrowed eyes. This was not the time for her whole Mother Theresa act. Surely she knew that she was only further encouraging Klaus to be needy and childish.

He should go visit her in Los Angeles and give Claire a piece of candy every time she misbehaved. See how she liked it.

“I’m too sad for a manicure,” Klaus mumbled into the cushions. “I am _bereft_, Allison.”

One of Ben’s cats had emerged from underneath the sofa, stretching its back and yawning wide, and Ben lay down on his stomach to tease it with the drawstring of his hoodie.

“Go drop off some applications, then,” he suggested, unconcerned by the claws swiping within centimeters of his face.

Five blinked, then frowned. “Applications?”

Klaus rolled onto his back with a deep sigh, and reached behind his head to readjust Allison’s hand in his hair. “I was thinking about finding a part-time job,” he said, although the dull resignation in his voice made Five suspect someone else had thought of that idea for him.

“Really?” Allison asked in delight. She gave a gentle tug at his roots. “That would be great! You could meet new people, and—”

She bit the end of her sentence off, looking suddenly unsure of herself.

“And do something productive instead of watching court shows all day,” supplied Ben, who was never afraid to hit Klaus with hard truths.

Klaus twisted around to level him with a glare. “I am not going to sit here and listen to you rag on Judge Judy,” he warned. “That is my pretend grandmother you’re talking about.”

Allison released a light, tinkling laugh. It reminded Five eerily of the one their mother deployed when she was trying to defuse an argument.

“Well, I think it’s a fantastic idea,” she said. Klaus scrunched up his mouth dubiously, and she threw a meaningful look at Five.

He choked down his mouthful of over-sweet vodka. “You do realize that most employers would expect a man in his thirties to have previous work experience,” he said. “And that you can’t go outside to smoke whenever you feel like it.”

Allison gave him a disapproving frown. Five saluted her with his glass.

“Yeah,” Klaus sighed, “I know.”

He kicked a restless leg against the arm of the sofa, then swung himself around to sit upright. “Okay, let’s go get beautified,” he said, flashing Allison a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I can do my part to shore up the economy by supporting local businesses.”

She brushed a stray curl away from his left eye. “What a philanthropist you are,” she said. “You coming, Ben?”

He scooped up his kitten and rolled onto his back. “Nah,” he said as he settled it onto his chest. “Have fun.”

“See you later,” called Five, already leaning over the bar to get the bottle of vodka. Adding more alcohol to his cocktail could only improve the taste, he’d decided.

Klaus turned and blew him a kiss like an idiot. Allison gave no indication that she’d even heard him.

Once the door had groaned to a close behind them, Ben angled his head up from his spot on the floor.

“You could be more a little more positive, you know. It doesn’t hurt.”

Five plucked an ice cube from his glass and bit into it with a loud crunch. “I’ll take your word for it.”

{}{}{}{}{}

Five woke up to darkness and a taste like sunbaked garbage in his mouth.

He ground the heel of his palm against his eye and squinted at his alarm clock. 3:24. Too early to be up and about, but then, he’d passed out somewhere around six yesterday evening.

He settled on his back and stared up at the ceiling, letting the fog of sleep clear from his mind.

Had the water stain up there always been so yellow? Why had nobody painted over it in all those years he’d been missing? It looked, as ever, like an Easter Island head wearing a hat.

Once he felt sufficiently awake, he jumped to the bathroom. That was one of the most convenient things about his powers, that in less time than it took to blink, he could go from drowsing in his bed to stubbing his toe on the chipped floor tile.

“SON OF A BITCH!”

Instead of screaming all the other things he wanted to at the floor, he hissed his annoyance through his teeth and slapped at the wall. His brothers were light sleepers, and he’d had enough 4 a.m. whisper-fights with all of them to last a lifetime.

Mom was sitting on the bench in the hallway above the foyer, staring at the paintings there with a placid smile and glassy eyes. She would wake up out of her dormant state if he touched her or spoke to her, but he left her alone.

The smell of freshly-brewed coffee was already wafting up the staircase from the kitchen, and he supposed Diego had just returned home from his _Let’s Play Police_ adventures.

To his surprise, though, it was Allison puttering around, slicing up strawberries next to a bubbling pot on the stovetop.

“Oh!” she said in surprise. She had a thick white cream smeared across her upper lip, something to bleach or remove hair, he surmised, and she touched a self-conscious hand to her cheek. “You’re up early.”

“So are you.” He jumped to the cabinets to get a mug and then jumped again to the coffee pot, gratified by the way she started when he popped in right next to her.

“I took a nap before I left L.A. to try to get on an East Coast sleep schedule,” she explained ruefully as she resumed slicing the strawberries. “But I guess I timed it wrong, because now I’m wide awake.”

“Mm. Better luck next time.” He pulled out a chair at the table and dropped into it, rubbing his bare toes over the broken rung at the bottom.

“How about you?” Allison asked behind him. “Are you… feeling okay?”

Oh, God. As if he hadn’t gotten torn up plenty of times without needing anyone to play nursemaid after the fact. Maybe he was a lush, but he was a self-sufficient one.

“You mean am I hungover. The answer is no, I haven’t gotten a hangover since I time-travelled back here.” He turned around and bared his teeth at her in a rough approximation of a smile. “But thank you for your concern.”

The worry in her face melted into vague irritation. “That’s the benefit of youth, I guess.”

Five clenched his jaw. That was a cheap shot, but he’d allow her the one.

They both fell silent for a few minutes. The only sound in the kitchen was the bubbling of whatever was in the pot on the stove. Cream of wheat, it smelled like.

“So, I was thinking,” Allison said suddenly, “that we could go out and have a ‘Me and You’ day.”

Five twisted around and frowned suspiciously at her back. The only things he and Allison had ever shared were a surname and distaste for one another. They didn’t have the open, seething hostility of Luther and Diego, but they’d never made a secret of the fact that they were not each other’s favorite.

“What inspired that thought?”

She shrugged and turned to lean against the counter, the picture of casual domesticity in her bathrobe and her pajama pants and the cream above her lip.

“We never do anything that’s just the two of us,” she said, biting into a strawberry. “I thought we could hang out for a bit, that’s all.”

Five narrowed his eyes and took a sip of his coffee. Like hell that was all.

Under the weight of his gaze, Allison’s shoulders slumped. “I wanted to go run some errands and I’m terrible at driving stick shift,” she confessed on a sigh. “I was hoping you could give me a ride in the van, since you’re up already.”

“Mm.” He thought it over, then gave her a gracious nod. “Fine. I need new shoes anyway.”

“Oh, yeah? Claire outgrows hers all the time, too.” Allison gave him a sly grin as she ladled the cream of wheat into a bowl. “That’s the drawback of youth.”

Five glowered at her over his coffee mug.

“You know,” he said, jerking a nod at her breakfast, “I never understood how you could eat that stuff. It looks like boiled snot.”

Allison paused with the spoon halfway to her mouth, and eyed her food critically.

“It looks,” Five went on, “like _mucus.”_

Her face tightened. She lowered the spoon.

There. Who was smirking now?

{}{}{}{}{}

His and Allison’s ‘Me and You Day’ started exactly at 4:37 in the morning, much to his annoyance.

How many errands did she need to run? He wasn’t chauffeuring her around all fucking day, and there weren’t even any shoe stores open this early.

“You do know that there is absolutely no reason for you to be buying groceries,” Five complained as he eased the van out of the driveway. “Luther goes shopping every week.”

“Yeah, but I felt like I should contribute something,” said Allison, skimming the list she’d taken off of the refrigerator. “I mean, I’m here enough, right?”

“You certainly are,” he muttered under his breath.

“Hm?” She looked up. “I didn’t catch that.”

“Nothing.”

The closest twenty-four hour grocery store was a little farther than the place they usually went, and Five had to focus hard to navigate the unfamiliar streets in the dim early morning light. It was a secret he would take to his grave, but it was a little difficult to see over the van’s high dashboard.

He might need to consider getting his own car. Something… not _smaller,_ but… more scaled to size.

They came to a red light, and Allison tapped against the window. “Hey, look at that!”

She was pointing at an ugly, squat building with a large ‘COMING SOON’ banner out front.

“The community college is expanding their campus out to our neighborhood,” she said, squinting at the sign next to it. “That’s kind of exciting, huh?”

“I think you and I define ‘exciting’ differently.”

The light changed, but he didn’t miss the roll of her eyes as they pulled away.

“I always wanted to take some college classes,” she said, glancing in his direction. Her lips curved into a playful smile. “And maybe I will! I’ll be the first one in the family to get a degree, what do you think?”

“I think it’s a brilliant plan,” he told her flatly. “What better way to get noticed by the Oscars committee than by getting an Associates’ in accounting?”

Allison forced out a strained laugh. “I’d forgotten how funny you are.”

There was a difference between being funny and making fun, but he let the matter drop.

“No, if I was going to go to school now, I’d just study something I thought was interesting.” She made a thoughtful sound. “Like, psychology, or literature maybe? I don’t know. What would you study?”

She turned to him and raised an eyebrow. There was something practiced about the gesture, Five thought, like this conversation was not entirely a spur of the moment thing.

“Hospitality.”

“…Okay. It was a genuine question, but the sarcasm is much appreciated. Really.”

“No problem,” he said serenely.

Being in a grocery store at five in the morning was a bit of an odd experience. There were more employees than customers roaming the aisles, stocking bags of rice, getting the ‘Buy One, Get One’ pickle display set up. There was no overhead music playing, just the competing radios of two of the staff members as one mopped the floor and the other pulled stale bread from the bakery case.

It reminded Five a little of the unnatural stillness of the Apocalypse, except with working lights and fresh lettuce.

He pushed their cart slowly behind Allison as she made her way down the cereal aisle, stopping on occasion to check the nutritional information on the backs of the boxes. Klaus had written ‘cereal with marshmallows!!’ on the shopping list, and she was on a hunt for the healthiest option available.

“Oh! Paw Patrol!” She grabbed a brightly-colored box off the shelf and examined it before turning to show Five.

“Claire is nuts about this show,” she said. “I should buy some when I get back to L.A., she’d love it.”

She’d love eating her favorite cartoon characters? Children were psychotic.

Allison’s smile grew nostalgic as she put the box back on the shelf. “Hey,” she said, “do you remember when we were kids and you made those Pokemon cards for Ben?”

Five draped his arms over the handle of the cart and trailed her down the aisle. “Vaguely.”

Distinctly, in truth. Ben had somehow managed to sneak a stack of the real cards into the house, and they’d been his favorite thing to play with until their father found them. Five had spent a week listening to him crying through their shared bedroom wall at night until he’d decided to sketch him a hand-made replacement deck.

It hadn’t been out of the goodness of his heart. It had been out of the need for sleep, because sound carried in that old house.

“And you used to doodle little things for Vanya, remember? You drew her a mermaid once when we like, seven, and I think I almost died of jealousy because_ I_ didn’t have a picture of a mermaid.” Allison laughed faintly at the memory. “Do you ever do stuff like that anymore?”

Five shrugged one shoulder. “Not really.”

She tossed a box of Cheerios into the cart. “You should start again,” she said, then smiled like she’d just had an idea. “We should get some art supplies while we’re out. You could sketch some things to decorate the house, make it a little less… formal, in there.”

Five pursed his lips. “Maybe if they’re good enough, Mom will put them up on the fridge.”

“Oh, come on. I’m not baiting you, you were talented.”

“For an eight-year-old. I seem to recall you having an interest in dinosaurs at around the same age. Forget accounting, have you ever considered studying paleontology?”

Allison sighed deeply and turned down the canned goods aisle.

They didn’t end up buying anything that urgently needed to be refrigerated, so Allison instructed him to drive to the library next.

“I told Klaus I’d return these books for him,” she explained, pulling one out of her over-sized handbag. “I think he only asked because he thought I’d cover the late fees for him, but we can just put them in the drop-off box and leave.”

Oh, so _now_ she was invested in turning Klaus into a responsible adult? Quick turnaround, once she was the one being inconvenienced.

Five pulled up in front of the library and hit the blinkers on. “Make it quick.”

“Or you’ll drive away without me?” She laughed as she unbuckled her seatbelt, and once again, it reminded Five distinctly of their mother. The way that _she_ tended to laugh when one of them—usually Klaus, sometimes Diego—was being absurd.

Allison climbed out of the van, and he pulled his jacket tighter at the blast of cold air that hit him when the door opened. If and when he got a car of his own, he was going to find one with a better heating system than this piece of shit.

She hopped back in moments later, followed by another freezing draft of air, and began rubbing her hands together to warm them up.

“They’re looking for volunteers,” she said. “At the library, I mean. There’s a sign in the window.”

“Fascinating. Where do you want to go next?”

“Well, it is _kind_ of interesting,” she argued. “I’d sort of like spending all day in a library, wouldn’t you?”

“We have a library at home. Where do you want to go?”

She made a face at him. “That’s not the same, Five. The public library has so much more. You know, subscriptions to all kinds of magazines and scientific journals… and I bet their volunteers can get access to things in their archives that regular people can’t…”

“Allison,” he said shortly. “I am stopped in the bike lane. _Where do you want to go?”_

She let her head fall back against the head rest. “Find a drive-through?” she suggested, sounding defeated. “I could use something hot to drink, it’s cold out there.”

There was a fast food place on the next block, and while their coffee was subpar, Five was willing to suffer through it if it meant it would get them home faster.

Because Allison hadn’t asked him for a ride just so she could run errands, he’d realized. She was scheming.

“Maybe Klaus could get a job here,” Allison mused as they joined the growing line of cars in the take-out lane. “Except then I’d be asking him to bring me home milkshakes all the time, and that wouldn’t be any good.”

“I’m sure they do criminal background checks, so I doubt you have anything to worry about.”

Allison whipped her head around to face him, and for a second he thought she was about to tell him off—but then her expression eased, and she was smiling again.

“Well! I guess the only solution is to start our own business, then.” She tapped a finger to her mouth, pretending to be deep in thought. “Klaus could handle all the customer service stuff, and you could keep the books. I’d be in charge of PR.”

“Why would a family business with three employees need a PR agent?”

“Oh, no, we’d have seven employees!” Allison laughed and began ticking them off on her fingers. “Luther would be in charge of the stockroom, and Diego would be security, obviously. Ben could be Klaus’s manager, since that’s basically his job already. And Vanya would… be too smart to start a business with us. So six employees, I guess.”

“I’m still not seeing the need for a PR agent.”

Allison let out an amused ‘pfft.’ “Oh, come on, Five. I’m just kidding around.”

She stared ahead out the window, humming softly under her breath.

After a second, the humming stopped.

“…Can you imagine if we actually did it, though?”

It was the timing of it all that set him off, really. The joke, the weighted pause, the big _‘what if?’_ moment—it was something straight out of a movie. Only he had never agreed to play the leading man.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Five snapped.

Allison blinked a few times. “What? No, of course not—“

“Because I see what you’re doing,” he bit out at her. “I don’t need you to suggest all these, these—“ He waved a frustrated hand. “_Activities_, for me.”

Allison’s mouth fell open. “What are you _talking_ about?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ, Allison, don’t play dumb now.” He eased the car forward. It took all of his self-control to not just stomp on the gas pedal. “I don’t need a degree, or a hobby, or a volunteer position, and I definitely don’t need a fucking business, so just _stop_, alright?”

Allison crossed her arms. “There’s nothing _to_ stop,” she told him, but the stubborn set of her jaw said otherwise. “I just thought it would be nice if we spent some time together, and, y’know, talked while we did it. It was a lot to ask for, I know.”

“Oh, bullshit,” he said heatedly. “You don’t want to spend more time with me, you think I’m an asshole.”

Allison’s eyes flashed as they moved forward again. “That’s not true,” she argued, her voice brittle. “I don’t think that at all.”

“Yes you do.”

“No I don’t.”

“Yes you do.”

“Stop telling me what I think!”

“It’s that I’m an asshole.”

“Shut up!”

“See?”

“Sir?” a staticky voice to his left called. “What did you order? I can’t hear you.”

Five leaned out the window while Allison fumed in the seat next to him.

After he’d placed their order and they’d pulled forward to pay, she turned back to him, composed once more.

“I don’t think you’re an asshole all the time, but I do think you’ve been acting like one lately.” She thinned her lips. “You can’t just shit all over Klaus because _you’re_ unhappy. That isn’t fair.”

Five scowled at her over his shoulder as he accepted his change from the cashier. “Who says I’m unhappy? You? Because as far as I know, I’m perfectly content, but far be it from me to contradict you.”

“What is _that _supposed to mean?”

Her voice had gone suddenly sharp, and Five realized with vicious satisfaction that she was done being nice to him.

“I mean that you’re a fucking busybody, Allison,” he told her, and even he was surprised by the venom in the words. “You always think you know what’s best for everybody, and you just push and push and push until people give in and do what you want—“

“I was trying to help you!” she cried in frustration. “You can’t tell me that you’re suddenly getting trashed before noon every day because things are going great, and you aren’t the easiest person to give suggestions to—“

“Because I don’t want your suggestions,” he snarled as he inched the car forward. “Maybe Klaus doesn’t mind you treating him like a child, and Vanya doesn’t speak up when you decide to redecorate her apartment—“

“She loves that rug!”

“_You_ love that rug.”

“It ties the whole room together,” she said, sounding wounded.

Five hit his hand against the steering wheel. “Give it a rest, will you?” he demanded. “You are so controlling—“

“Oh, ‘controlling?’” Allison asked angrily. “Is that what we’re calling it when someone tries to be nice? Maybe I should sit around making snippy little comments instead, everyone loves _that.”_

“—and you try to dress it up like you’re being thoughtful, because it’s not enough to always get your own way, is it? No, you need everybody to like you while you’re doing it—“

“Right! Why try to keep people happy when I _could_ be pushing their buttons just for the sake of it? God, you know how much I hate the word ‘mucus!’”

Five made a strangled sound of disbelief. “And now you’re twisting everything around so _you’re_ the victim! Top notch performance— I’d applaud you if I wasn’t driving.”

Allison’s fists were balled up tight in her lap, her eyes narrowed to slits. “I’m not performing anything, you absolute _dick_, we were having a normal conversation and you just started _yelling_ at me—“

“Oh, you’re not?” he snapped as they pulled up to collect their coffee. “Funny, because you keep imitating Mom, and I’m not sure what to call that if not a performance.”

“I—_what?_”

“You keep laughing like Mom does!” Five leaned across the gearshift to stare her down. “_That is not the way you laugh, Allison.”_

She gestured inarticulately for a moment. “And you’re calling _me_ controlling?” she burst out finally. “Do you even hear yourself talking right now?! You sound crazy!”

“Crazier than the person copying a robot?”

Allison threw her head back and let out a theatrical little snicker, one that would suit a cartoon villain more than any living, breathing person.

“There,” she demanded furiously, “how’s that? Better?”

Five scowled at her. “Is that supposed to be me? I don’t laugh like that.”

She did it again, her eyes glinting.

“You sound like an idiot. I hope you know that. You sound stupid.”

A third time.

“Stop!”

“Uh… excuse me?”

He turned sharply to his left. A girl was leaning out of the pick-up window, biting her lip.

“Um. I’m sorry, I… I have your coffee, but… my manager wants me to ask how old you are?” she said, in the pleading, please-don’t-yell-at-me way that could only be perfected by teenagers working in customer service.

“I have a license!”

“He has a license!”

Five twisted slowly in his seat to glare at Allison.

“Okay, I’m sorry!” the girl said fast. She thrust the cup holder at him. “Here’s your coffee, and um. Have a nice day?”

“You, too,” Allison said crossly, taking the drinks from Five’s hands.

“I don’t need you to speak for me,” he grumbled as they pulled away.

“Excellent.” Her voice was like ice. She kept her gaze trained ahead. “I think I’d like to go home, if you don’t mind. I suddenly have a headache.”

{}{}{}{}{}

She left him to take in the groceries by himself.

Luther was awake by then, and she asked him if he’d mind loaning her the van for the day while Five popped in and out with the bags. The stick shift wasn’t _such_ a hurdle, evidently.

Five retreated to the library and tried to work on a mathematical proof, but made no progress. He’d never noticed it before, but he could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the next room from there, loud and distracting in the quiet.

He jumped to his bedroom instead. There was a letter he’d been sitting on for two weeks, from the Brazilian professor he corresponded with, and he supposed it was time to draft a response. But he could hear the clock there, too, or maybe he was simply anticipating the next beat—a steady _tick, tick, tick_, like Chinese water torture.

He threw his pen aside and jumped to the bar.

What he really wanted to do was go to see Vanya, but he suspected that was where Allison had gone. Probably out of pure spite.

She was so manipulative that way. He was keenly aware of the irony in him, of all people, playing armchair psychologist, but it didn’t take any special training to see what was going on here. Allison had little control over her life in Los Angeles these days, and her natural instinct was to seek it out elsewhere.

If she couldn’t parent her own daughter, the next best thing was her screw-up siblings. And if one of them wouldn’t play along with her Mother Goose bullshit, why not try to turn the rest against him?

He bet she was sitting at Vanya’s kitchen table right now, telling her all about how what a horrible person he was, how he’d flipped his lid and started shouting at her for no reason.

Well, fuck her. He stood by every word that had come out of his mouth. Vanya would see right through it, anyway.

Probably.

Maybe.

He hoped.

After a moment of consideration, he pushed the lime juice aside and went straight for the vodka.

He fell asleep on the sofa somewhere around eleven a.m. and woke up at dinnertime, the smell of beef stew making his stomach churn.

“Allison called,” Luther said across the table. “She said she’s staying over at Vanya’s tonight.”

“Why does nobody ever invite me to their slumber parties?” lamented Klaus. “Are they afraid of how much fun I am? I’m starting to think that’s the only explanation.”

Five pushed his food around in the bowl and tried to ignore the accusatory looks Ben was throwing his way.

The next day, he lasted until noon before his first drink.

He’d tried to just… putter, the way Luther and Klaus did, but he couldn’t settle to anything. Laundry—Mom would do it if he didn’t. Sweeping up the leaves in the courtyard—that was Luther’s territory. Reorganizing his bedroom—what was the point?

He wasn’t _unhappy_. He was only… out of his element, a bit.

For as long as he could remember, his time had been at a premium. There were always important matters to attend to, grand plans to advance—if he finished his history lesson quickly, he could practice his jumps before dinner, or he needed to cobble a shelter together before it got dark, or he had to get into sniping position right this fucking second, because his target was turning down the street earlier than anticipated.

Those days were over now. There were no important matters, and there were no grand plans, and there was so much time.

Around his fourth shot of vodka, it occurred to him that most people got along just fine without an overarching life goal. Allison didn’t return home that day.

She didn’t come back the day after that, either, and Five was starting to get irritated.

He hadn’t said anything _that_ awful to her. He’d said worse things in the past. He couldn’t remember any of them at the moment, but he was sure he had.

All of it was true, anyhow. She was nosy and pushy and entirely too concerned with what people thought of her. She got under his skin in a way none of their other siblings could, and a lot of the time he didn’t like her very much—but, of course, she knew that he still loved her.

…Didn’t she?

He was pulled from his musings by Klaus sprinting into the room and diving behind the sofa.

“Five!” he hissed. “Hide me! Teleport me away to a beach someplace, Dave can come find us later!”

Five swiveled around in his barstool. “Hide you from who? What did you do now?”

“Nothing!” Klaus whined, and began trying to wedge himself underneath the couch. “That old dude who was haunting us is back. I thought he was gone for good, but just now he showed up in the kitchen—I had to leave my sandwich behind and I swear to God if Luther finds it and eats it—“

“Is your sandwich relevant to this story?”

Klaus flipped over onto his stomach with a groan and began trying to scoot himself backwards. “He asked how we’d all been and I said fine and I told him you got your license and Ben got two cats and he said good for you guys and then I asked if he brought me back any presents from Australia and he said he was the only present from Australia and then I said—“

“Klaus.”

“I told him I was bored and now he’s trying to make me do chores.”

“Mm.” Five drummed his fingers on the bar. “What sort of chores?”

“The hard kind! There was all this crap he said we should do while he was away, and he’s pissed I didn’t get to any of it— he wants me to rip out the tiles in the second floor bathroom and put in new ones, but I can’t just _do_ that! What the fuck do I look like, a… a lumberjack?”

Klaus paused in writhing around on the carpet. “What do you call someone who tiles floors for a living? Is that a real job? I bet you have to go to school for it.”

Five doubted that.

He glanced at his glass. He’d already poured his first shot of vodka, but he hadn’t taken it yet. Hadn’t yet made up his mind if he was even going to.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go.”

{}{}{}{}{}

No formal schooling was required to tile a floor, as it turned out.

It did require patience, and all of Five’s upper body strength, and a number of tools they had to go out and buy—but that was all manageable.

Klaus complained the entire time. The hammering was giving him a headache. He’d chipped his nail polish. The mortar smelled bad. What did Five _mean_ he couldn’t take a piss in here, the toilet was in perfect working order, wasn’t it?

Ben tried to help until it became clear there wasn’t enough room for three people to work all at once, so he curled up in the bathtub with a book. Diego stopped by a few times to offer his advice, which the dead man told them not to take, and Luther hauled the old tiles away in buckets with more enthusiasm than the task really warranted. Allison did not come home.

It took all day, and it was exhausting, sweaty work, and Five was about ten seconds away from driving the chisel straight up Klaus’s nose—but then they were finished, and it looked… pretty bad.

“You used too much mortar here,” Diego explained, like he was some master handyman and not just pointing out the obvious. “See? Because it’s not supposed to be on top of the tile like that.”

Klaus squinted down at the floor. “Are you sure?” he asked dubiously. “I think it _is_ supposed to be on top of the tile like that.”

“Definitely,” agreed Five. “It says in the instructions to slather mortar over everything.”

“The toilet seat. The towel rack. The windows.”

“If anything, we didn’t use _enough_ mortar.”

Diego said something rude and stomped off.

Five examined the spot he’d been indicating. The new floor did look terrible. But there was a clear difference, he could see, between where they’d started and where they’d finished. A definite improvement.

Klaus turned to him. “Well! This has been a horrible experience, and I’m very glad we got to share it. If anyone offers me a job remodeling bathrooms, I now know that I’m better off gouging out my own eyeballs.”

“Right.” Five brushed some of the dust off of his pants. “I had an idea. On that front.”

“Oh? I was thinking I’d use an ice cream scoop, but do tell.”

He pursed his lips and gave Klaus a dirty look. “I was thinking you could make up a job to put on your resume. Give the phone number for Pogo’s office line, and I’ll pretend to be your boss if anyone calls.”

Klaus’s brows rose in surprise.

“That kinda sounds illegal, but if it’s not, then it’s a really good idea,” Ben chimed in from the bathtub. “You should go for it, dude.”

Klaus gasped and pressed his hands to his cheeks. “What’s this? Benjamin Hargreeves advocating dishonesty? As I live and breathe!”

Ben shrugged and turned a page in his book. “Whatever works. And stop calling me ‘Benjamin.’”

“Benjimminy.”

“Try again.”

“Ben-jar-of-jam.”

“Getting colder.”

Five turned away, pinching the bridge of his nose.

They could sort their nonsense out between themselves.

He had work to do.

{}{}{}{}{}

“Five. Nice to see you.”

Five folded the corner of the page he was reading and shoved an indignant cat off of his lap.

“Allison.” He gave her a once-over as she approached the sofa. It had been more than a month since he’d last laid eyes on her. “You look tan.”

“L.A. is sunny.” She came to a stop behind him and glanced around the room with a vague frown. “You look… healthy.”

He rolled his eyes. She could say ‘not drunk.’ No point in walking on eggshells.

“How was your flight?”

She was still scanning the room, like there was something different about it she couldn’t quite place. “Oh, it was fine,” she said distractedly. “What have you been up to lately?”

“Nothing much. Some projects around the house.” He waved a hand in a lazy circle. “I hung new wallpaper in here.”

“You did,” she noted in surprise. She met his gaze, curious. “It looks great. What else are… I mean, _are_ you working on anything else?”

Five shrugged and swung his legs up onto the sofa. “Little things, so far. I’m planning to tear the bar out soon, though.”

“You’re going to tear out the bar,” she repeated, her expression unreadable.

“Mm.” He studied the cover of his book. “We don’t do any entertaining, and it takes up a lot of space.” He paused. “I’m not sure what to put in its place yet.”

“You’ll think of something.” She shifted her weight a little, still with that peculiar look on her face. “So… I just put my bags in my room.”

“Good for you.”

“And I noticed something that wasn’t there the last time I came.”

He nearly asked ‘_Yourself?_’ but he held his tongue. He could be civil. In short bursts.

“There’s a little sketch,” she said, her voice soft. “Of a mermaid and an Easter Island head on a beach. It’s… it’s awfully cute.”

“Hm. Well,” he said, opening up his book, “consider it a peace offering. Since not having your own mermaid was apparently such an issue.”

She laughed, and he noted with distaste that her eyes had grown misty. “Thank you. I accept your, um. Your offer of peace.”

He flashed her a brief smile. “Good.”

There was a moment of companionable silence.

Then, “Look, Five, I think we should clear the air between us—“

“Oh my God,” he cut in, irate. “Allison, take the fucking picture and move on. Jesus.”

“Just let me finish! I don’t want things to be uncomfortable, and—“

“You’re making things uncomfortable,” he accused. “This conversation we’re having right now is uncomfortable. Holy _fuck,_ this was exactly what I was trying to avoid by drawing you the stupid thing!”

“—we’re all adults now, and we really need to figure out how to start having reasonable discussions instead of—“

Five leaned over the back of the sofa and fixed her with a glare. “If you don’t stop talking this instant,” he threatened, “I’m jumping straight out of this house.”

Allison sighed. “Okay,” she said. “We’ll act like nothing happened. As is tradition.”

“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” Five muttered into his book.

She shook her head and walked away.

“Five.”

He looked up. She was halfway out of the room, hand on the doorknob.

“I just want you to know, I did think about what you said.” A pause. Then all in a rush, “Vanya loves the rug I gave her and I don’t sound like Mom at all. See you at dinner!”

She slammed the door behind her before he could respond. To add insult to injury, he was pretty sure he heard her laughing on the other side of it.

Five returned to his reading with a scoff.

For all that Allison acted so superior, she could be every bit as immature as the rest of their siblings. No doubt she was expecting him to sit there seething that she’d gotten the last word, but he had better ways to spend his time. The dining room chairs weren’t going to varnish themselves.

…Also, she should never have let him know the ‘mucus’ thing still worked, because he was definitely going to say it at dinner.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a confession to make. I really wanted to see Five and Allison get into a full screaming fight in the McDonald's drive-thru, and I just sort of wrote a whole story around that.


End file.
